Elective Carnage

Loss

Nine Eleven

7 Deadly Sins

INTOXICATION

Watching you go, old hero,
Laertes in his Sunday suit
planting in the mud,
numb to the lies of his son,
the Odyssey half begun,
his adventuring child admiring
the casual folly of his fun;

watching you go, old hero,
sharks all around me
on the bow of the trawler, snapping for breath,
trapped like me;
what were you thinking?--your face turned to the sea,
so far away,
sideburns feathering out like Hermes’s wings
from your old Greek captain’s hat;